


Unity

by queermartins



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 06:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4555020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queermartins/pseuds/queermartins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Scott and the werewolves of the pack go to Mexico to find Cora, a Celtic God tries to take over Beacon Hills, leaving the girls to stop him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unity

**Author's Note:**

> Created for round three of the teen wolf reverse bang. special shoutout to Jenny, I hope you like it!!

It’s somehow different now, going to lacrosse games. The game hasn’t changed; but the dynamic of the group has. Maybe it’s because of the whole Nogitsune thing, they didn’t really have time to solidify Kira and Malia into their group, into the pack. 

And if she’s being completely honest, she kind of likes the addition of Malia to the bleachers. It works wonderfully to stop people bothering them. She provides a different voice, one not unlike Lydia’s own. That doesn’t stop her eyes lighting up when Kira is faster than everyone else, or when she scores. It’s sweet really, the way that Kira and Malia have gotten so close lately, reminding Lydia of her friendship with Allison. 

When she had asked Malia if maybe they were something more than best friends, Malia had just laughed in her face.

It might only be pre-season training before school starts up again, but she thinks that the team is looking good this year. Even if half of the team is on vacation. Most notably missing are all of their resident werewolves, including their Alpha, they're off on a werewolf hunting expedition to find Cora in Mexico. All because their tingly werewolf senses felt that something was seriously off, that they’d need all the help they can get. Scott’s been particularly protective ever since evil infiltrated them from the inside, but she’s not particularly worried about it, honestly. 

That is, of course, until Malia starts acting weird when they’re watching Kira practice. She shifts in her seat, Lydia feeling the girl’s whole body tense next to her. Lydia looks over at Allison, who’s watching Malia like a hawk. Then Malia starts sniffing the air, nose crinkling in distaste. 

“Malia.” It’s Allison who speaks first, voice laced with concern and anticipation. 

“What’s wrong?” Lydia adds. She’s not really sure that she wants to know the answer. Something about the feel of this fills her body with a knot of dread.

“Something smells weird,” Malia turns to her, eyes slightly blown.

“What kind of weird?”

“Supernatural kind of weird. Rancid,” she finishes, shoulders shrugging lightly. Lydia’s not sure if it’s because Malia doesn’t know what the smell is, or if it’s because it’s nothing to be concerned about. Either way, Lydia can’t stop herself from rolling her eyes; she’d really like to have just a few months where the supernatural world doesn’t try to ruin her life. 

Kira turns to look at them from the pitch, eyebrows shot and eyes wide, and Lydia knows then that Kira feels it too.

“We’ll follow it after practice, there’ll be less people around,” she says. Allison nods, and Malia curls her fingers around the bottom of the bench tightly, knuckles going white.

The knot in Lydia’s stomach coils a little more.

-

After practice, Kira doesn’t head to the locker room with the rest of the team, instead walking straight towards them at the bleachers. 

Malia goes to her first, Allison and Lydia slightly behind her. 

“Something’s wrong,” Kira says, the first words any of them have spoken since practice ended.

It’s a bit of an understatement. Malia spent the remainder of practice fidgeting and gagging as quietly as she could, before actually throwing up over the side of the bleachers (to the chagrin of the junior sitting there).

Malia gives a curt nod, nose still crinkling as she continues to scent the air

Lydia looks at Allison and wonders if she can feel the knot of dread, too. Allison takes her hand and threads their fingers together, squeezes tightly. It’s supposed to be reassuring, but Allison squeezes with so much pressure it hurts more than reassures.

“Sorry,” she says sheepishly, offering a half smile in apology.

“Come on.” Malia grabs Lydia's arm, dragging her towards the source of the smell, Allison and Allison close behind. Lydia tries her best to keep up with Malia, but it's kind of hard to keep up properly when you're being dragged by someone who has supernatural strength. She spends most of her time trying to stay on her feet. 

The trail leads them through the lacrosse pitch, past the school building and into the forest. They follow it, through the dark green canopy to a clearing. There’s a small body of water, bigger than a pond but not quite big enough to be a lake. Malia stops, sniffs the air again and immediately gags. 

“It’s here, somewhere.” She sniffs along the water’s edge, but after a few minutes her shoulders slump and she huffs out a swear under her breath, before shifting into coyote form.. It’s quicker that way, Lydia supposes. Then Malia disappears. She’s kind of struck by how elegant Malia looks in coyote form, like she could snap your neck with all the grace of a queen. It’s not the first time she’s seen Malia transform, but she doesn’t do it often. They aren’t quite used to it as a pack yet. Lydia thinks that if she could, Malia would transform more often.

Allison and Kira split up, going over to the other side of the water, but Lydia figures she should stay close by in case Malia comes back.

A few minutes later, a silver coyote emerges from behind some foliage towards the north side of the not-pond-not-lake. It’s Malia, and she looks around for Allison or Kira before approaching Lydia, and for a brief second, it stings that she’s Malia’s third choice. Sure, she doesn’t have supernatural kitsune abilities like Kira, and she’s not an absolute perfect shot like Allison, but that doesn’t mean she’s not useful. She is a banshee after all. 

Malia comes to stand in front of her, cocks her head to the side, and if Lydia didn’t know better she would say that Malia actually smirked at her. Malia reaches up and tugs on Lydia’s cardigan, leaving behind a teeth shaped mudstain. 

“Seriously?” Lydia says, but it doesn’t stop her from following the coyote as she prances off in the direction she just came from. “Allison, Kira! Over here!”.

As they round the corner, Lydia is immediately hit by the smell of stale ocean and rotting flesh, which really doesn’t bode well. 

“Oh my God!” Kira coughed to her right, covering her nose with the end of the hoodie she put on after practice to cover her lacrosse jersey. Even Allison wrinkles her nose and blinks rapidly. Lydia doesn’t blame her, the smell definitely isn’t pleasant, even if it doesn’t bother her as much as it does the others. Maybe part of being a banshee is having a little resistance to the smell of death.

“What in the hell is that?” Malia says, back in human form. 

They stare at the body in front of them. A man of average height lies there in front of them, a wound in his chest with burn marks around the edges. Lydia would say that he was probably around their age. The webbing between his hands, his crystalline blue eyes and the fact there are gills in place of ribs makes them think whoever this was, wasn't exactly human.

“Some sort of water creature?” Allison puts it out there, uncharacteristically tentative. As Lydia looks around the small semicircle of her friends, it’s clear that they expect her to know what it is. Well, Lydia has done extensive research on the supernatural. 

“A kelpie, maybe a selkie,” she answers the unspoken question, and if she’s completely honest, she’s not sure how to tell the difference. She’s never seen either in the flesh, and there’s not a lot of conclusive research on that front. 

“What do we do?” Kira pipes up. “Call the guys?”

“No. we can’t call them till we know what’s going on,” Allison says, folding her arms over her chest. She turns back to Lydia. 

“Allison’s right. We need to know what’s going on better first.” Malia nods in agreement.

“Call Deaton,” Lydia says, kneeling down to further inspect the poor creature's body. “I didn’t feel a scream for him, we need to know why.” She’s sure that she already knows.

-

Allison calls Deaton, and a short while later, they’re leading him from the reserve car park to where Malia found the body.

“Oh, dear. Poor creature,” he says, as they’re all standing around the body again. 

“Well, what are we looking at?” Malia says, impatient and demanding.

“Patience, Malia,” Kira scolds. Malia looks like a toddler as she folds her arms over her stomach and looks at the ground. 

“Selkie. Definitely a selkie,” Deaton muses, crouching over the body, poking and prodding. Lydia wants to ask how he can tell but she suspects they don't have time for that. “It’s not hard to see how he died, but I’m not sure what would make such a wound. I need to take him back to the surgery to have a closer look.” 

They help him with the body, Lydia and Allison at the back, holding the legs, Malia and Kira up front near the shoulders, and Deaton around the midsection. The selkie is deceptively heavy, and it takes them longer than expected to help Deaton back to his van. They do eventually part ways, Deaton promising to call them when he has something. 

The knot in Lydia’s stomach grows tighter still, and she hopes she’s wrong about what it might turn into.

-

 

The girls all head back to Lydia’s after that. Her parents are out of town again and they need quiet. Crowded around the island in the Martin’s kitchen, they order pizza and sit in thoughtful silence for a while.

“You didn’t scream for him,” Malia states and Lydia swallows. She’s 90% sure why, but she doesn’t want it to be true.

“No.”

“Lydia,” Allison presses, leaning forward with her forearms on the counter. She nods encouragingly. 

“Banshees. They only scream when it’s decided that someone in the vicinity will die. If he had died during lacrosse practice, I’d have felt it, I’d have screamed. But I didn’t. He can’t have died during practice, and judging by the smell, he didn’t die recently. And I haven’t screamed in months.”

“You think he was killed somewhere else a while ago and brought here,” Kira clarifies and Lydia squeezes her eyes shut, because saying it out loud makes it real. She can only nod in response.

“Great,” Malia drawls sarcastically. She’s been spending way too much time around Stiles.

The pizza arrives, and they pull up Netflix on Lydia’s smart TV. They spend the rest of the night watching Mad Men, pointedly trying to ignore that it’s apparent that the supernatural world has different plans for the last few weeks of their summer than they did.

-

 

Deaton calls Lydia at noon the next day, telling her to come to the surgery. Allison goes with her. 

“What about Malia and Kira?” Allison queries, getting into the passenger’s side of the car. 

“Already there.” Lydia turns the key into the ignition and reaches to put the car in gear.

“Lydia.” Allison put her hands over Lydia’s on the steering wheel, Lydia staring determinedly ahead. 

“You’re my best friend. Something’s wrong. Talk to me.” Lydia looks up at her now, and unclenching her jaw, lets out a long sigh. 

“You’re going to scream soon, aren’t you? You can feel it.” Allison’s eyes widen in understanding, and the impending sense of dread that Lydia felt yesterday lightens a little.

“Yes,” she says, and it’s hard to breathe around the taste of death in her mouth.

-

They get to the clinic, and walk through the surgery doors to find Malia, Kira and Deaton crowded around a table.

“Lydia thinks he was killed somewhere else and brought here, and he’s been dead for a while,” Kira shares as Lydia and Allison join them.

Deaton nods.  
.  
“Yes, I came to the same conclusion. He’s been dead for at least a fortnight by my estimation.”

“What about the burn marks? Around the wound?” Lydia would be lying if she said it hadn’t been bothering her. She didn’t know of any human weapons that fit the bill.

“Yes, it was bothering me, too. I looked around, and I believe I found something.”

“It’s not human, is it?” She doesn’t know why she asks, she already knows the answer.

“Not strictly, no.” Lydia looks at him incredulously, she doesn’t have time for guessing games. “It appears to be caused by a flaming sword.”

They all look at each other; confused, anxious, full of anticipation. For Lydia, it’s just dread. She can recognise the heavy building of death in her lungs.

“A flaming sword?” Malia says, eyes wide, eyebrows hitching to her scalp.

“Yes. The kind owned by Celtic sea death Gods.” 

“Celtic...Sea...Death...God?” Kira says, in a further state of disbelief than Malia.

“Celtic Mythology tells of a sea deity called Manannán mac Lir. The son of the sea, known for blurring the lines between worlds. Between life and death.”

“Is he...evil?” Kira ventures. Deaton laughs lightly.

“He’s seen as a prankster, a trickster.”

“Some trick.”

“However, there are tales in folklore of supernatural beings enlisting his help for their own agendas. He’s seemingly quite easy to persuade, and he can quite easily convince other creatures to join his cause,” Deaton muses.

“You said the Selkie had been dead for at least two weeks.” Something clicks, and she internally rolls her eyes so hard that she’s surprised she doesn’t pass out. Deaton nods, everyone turning to look at her. 

“Scott and the other werewolves left for Mexico just over two weeks ago.” Realisation dawns.

“Someone did this deliberately because they think the pack is vulnerable without our alpha,” Allison says. It’s not a question.

“Yes,” Lydia agrees. “We have to call Scott.” With that, she thanks Deaton and turns to leave, already feeling the others follow.

-

She finds herself back in the kitchen around the island again, Malia to her right, Allison and Kira to her left. 

“What are you going to tell them?” Malia shifts a little closer to her, her body rigid with tension. 

“That we can handle it,” she answers, making sure they’re all in frame before clicking call next to Scott’s skype username.

-

"We're coming back." Scott says. Derek nods in agreement, Stiles and Isaac behind him.

"We can handle it," she says. She pushes past the swirling of doubts in her mind; she knows they aren't helpless without them. 

"It's only one body," Malia agrees next to her, breath ghosting on Lydia's skin. "We don't know for sure yet." Lydia looks over at her, giving a tiny smile of appreciation. 

"You need to find Cora, we might need her," Allison says. Lydia thinks it sounds more like an instruction than a suggestion. Kira beams and nods at her. 

"If the body count rises too much, we're coming back.”

-

All is well for a couple of days. No supernatural surprises. 

That is, until Lydia comes downstairs and opens the door to go for a mid- morning run with Allison, and finds another dead selkie, right on her doorstep. She's surprised that she doesn't scream, just rolls her eyes. It would be nice for the supernatural world to at least consult her before ruining her morning. She sighs, picking up her phone from the vestibule table. 

"Allison, you need to come over right now. Call the others. Call Deaton." 

-  
"Lydia, are you okay? Allison called," Kira gushes as she and Malia get out of her car. 

"What happened?" Malia asks, more bluntly than Kira, brows knitting together. 

Lydia moves out of her doorway to reveal the body of the dead selkie she really wishes she hadn't had to drag into her house to stop the blissfully unaware residents of her street seeing. She hopes that she can get rid of the smell before her mother gets home.

"Oh." 

"Allison's on her way. She had to pick Deaton up, his truck broke down," Malia says, as Kira goes to inspect the body further. She attempts a reassuring smile, and to Malia's credit, it actually does work. They walk back to the house together, almost close enough to be touching, but not quite. 

Malia takes one look at the body and says, “There’s something off about him.” Lydia agrees. She had the same thought herself, though she can’t put her finger on what it is.

“Is he…” Kira trails off mid-sentence, looks thoughtfully at the body she’s crouched over for a second. “...Is he smiling?”

Lydia crouches beside her to examine more, Malia doing the same on the opposite side. She looks entirely too closely for comfort and ascertains that he is indeed, smiling. Not a full-blown grin with teeth, but his lips are pressed in a line that slightly stretches his cheeks. He looks content - relieved almost.

“You guys look like the scooby gang,” Allison starts to joke as she enters the house with Deaton in tow, cutting herself off when she sees what they’re crouched over. She bends down next to Kira, smiles at her.

“He’s smiling,” Kira informs her and Allison looks at his face, reaches out to tilt it towards her so she can see better. As soon as her skin touches his, there’s an ungodly screech filled with pain and anger; worse than nails scratching across a blackboard. All of their hands immediately go to cover their ears. Lydia briefly wonders if the scream came from her mouth, but she doesn’t feel the heaviness of death leak into her veins and course through her body. Once the sounds stops, she turns to face the selkie.

He’s not smiling anymore.

-

“What just happened?” Allison asks. She’s not talking to any of them in particular, but Lydia feels like the question is directed at her anyway.

“Death,” she says before anyone else can answer. She’d know that sound anywhere, even if it wasn’t accompanied by the hollowing in her bones and scratch at the back of her throat as it usually is. She still recognises it. It still makes her want to bury her head until the ringing in her ears and the ache in her heart dissipates

“We should call Scott. They need to know,” Kira says. The words feel brittle against Lydia’s skin. Even though she knows Kira means well, there’s a feeling deep in her gut that says that bringing the rest of pack home would make it worse. 

“They can’t come home. It- I know it would make it worse.”

“We’re not helpless without them,” Malia agrees. They arrange to call Scott and the others, tell them not to come home. 

Lydia knows that if she tells him how she feels, he’ll stay in Mexico. He trusts her. He trusts all of them.

-

Helping Deaton get the body into the trunk of Allison’s car proves significantly more difficult than when they were in the reserve. This body is heavier, Allison’s car is smaller and Lydia’s street has a deceptively high amount of foot traffic, almost all of which is provided by nosy neighbours. They end up having to wrap the body loosely in blankets so that it looks like an oddly-shaped piece of furniture. Lydia has an internal eye roll when it works, because of course her neighbours would be stupid enough to buy that.

“He appears to have died in the same way as the other unfortunate soul,” Deaton says back at the surgery. She’s not surprised, not really. She suspects that no one else is either. “I also believe that they may be related.”

“Obviously. They died the same way. Of course they’re related,” Malia states, brows knitted and lips pursed into a thin line. Lydia turns to level a glare at her, but her amusement betrays her at the last second and it turns into a lopsided smile.

“I think he means by blood, Malia,” Allison supplies, almost entirely keeping the laughter out of her own voice.

“Indeed. I’ll call when I know more,” Deaton says, turning away. 

“Someone should stay with Lydia tonight. Whoever is behind this picked your house for a reason,” Allison says and Lydia knows that this isn’t an argument that she’s going to win. But she’ll try anyway. 

“I can take care of myself.”

“I know, Lyds. It’s just a precaution, safety in numbers.” Allison smiles at her, and Lydia realises that she had been snappier than intended. She can feel the pressure of the weight in her lungs rising, no matter how hard she tries to shove it back down.

“Maybe we could all stay, make a sleepover of it.” Kira grins at them. She has to admit, that does sound nice, but her mother would freak, and she knows when to pick her battles. Lowkey pissed off parents is not on the list of things she needs to be happening right now.

“Not after last time. My mom would freak out, it took forever to get the punch stains out of the living room carpet.”

“I’ll do it.” Malia pipes up, looking straight at her like she’s asking for permission. Lydia considers it for a moment. She doesn’t really get to spend that much time alone with Malia. She nods, the perfect blend of eager and nonchalant, if she says so herself.

-

Exactly thirty-seven minutes later, Malia turns up at her door. Bag slung over her shoulder and two large pizza boxes in her hand. Lydia moves to the side, creating enough space for Malia to come in but the other girl just stands there, seemingly waiting for an invitation. 

“You can come in, Malia.” Lydia smirks at her now. She wonders if it’s possible for someone to look both grateful and amused at the same time. If it was, that would be what Malia looks like.

“Kira says it’s rude to come into someone’s house without their permission first,” Malia offers as an explanation. She wonders how many times Malia had walked into Kira’s house without knocking to prompt that conversation. 

She leads Malia into her bedroom. 

“The guest rooms are all closed off for redecoration,” she explains, as if Malia didn’t know that already. “You can take the sofa downstairs, or my futon. I’m not sure how comfortable it is to sleep on, but it should be fine.” She doesn’t suggest bed-sharing, even though the words are burning on her tongue. Maybe they’re not quite there yet. 

“Futon is fine,” Malia replies, kicking off her boots and joining Lydia on her bed. She offers Lydia one of the pizza boxes. 

“Double pepperoni, extra cheese,” she answers the question that Lydia hasn’t had the chance to ask yet. Lydia makes sure to wait until Malia is engrossed in eating her own pizza - meat feast with anchovies. Lydia hates anchovies - before smiling at the side of Malia’s face.

Lydia puts on Legally Blonde. It’s never too late to start catching Malia up on what she’s missed in utterly fabulous teen cinema. 

“You’ve smelled weird ever since we found the body in the reserve,” Malia says, just as Sarah refuses to let Elle join their study group.

“I’ll have you know there’s nothing wrong with my personal hygiene.” 

“You smell like dread. Like anticipation. Like you know something bad is going to happen and you think it’s on you to stop it.” Malia turns to look at her now, eyes contemplative.

“It is.” Lydia looks back, can’t tear her eyes away from Malia’s; she can barely breathe through the intensity in the air between them.

“Pack means you don’t have to do things alone,” Malia says eyes still burning straight into hers. She gets it, Malia wants her to know she’s not alone. That she has friends, that she has family who want to help ease the loneliness. She guesses that Malia knows how she feels, wonders how alone she must have felt after that first transformation back into a human. They definitely have the dull ache of feeling alone in common. “Sometimes, when Kira feels sad, I hug her and it makes her feel better.” 

It’s a question, Lydia knows. The only person she’s let hug her for a very long time is Allison. 

“I could use a hug right now.” She smiles softly, softer than she thought that she’d be capable of with how heavy her heart feels, and shifts closer to Malia. She rests her head on Malia’s shoulder, feels comforted when Malia stretches her arm around the back of her head and pulls her closer. Lydia moves them backwards towards the headboard for comfort and what she’s sure was intended to be a brief comforting gesture, ends in them watching Elle Woods kick ass still attached to each other. 

They’re silent for a while after the movie ends. The credits finish rolling and Lydia feels herself drifting towards sleep, only vaguely aware it can’t be any later than 4pm. 

“It’s going to be okay, you know,” Malia says, punctuating her words with a squeeze to Lydia’s arm before getting up to go over to the futon for the night. Lydia misses the warmth, the safety immediately. 

“Please come back?” She knows it’s selfish, but she doesn’t care. She needs the reassurance right now. She doesn’t care if it makes her seem needy, though she knows that Malia doesn’t think that anyway. Malia looks at her briefly before wandering back over to the bed. Lydia curls herself back into Malia’s side again, they both settle into it.

“It’s going to be okay,” Malia reiterates.

Lydia falls asleep with swirls of hope and dread fighting in the pit of her stomach.  
-

She wakes to the sound of growling coming from her room. For a brief moment, she thinks the sound is coming from Prada. Then she realises it’s too deep, too feral to be Prada’s. The space next to her is cold. She blinks the sleepiness out of her eyes and looks around her room for Malia. 

She hears the growling again, turns towards the sound. 

Malia is standing in front of her bedroom window, wearing the clothes she didn’t have a chance to change out of last night, her hair tousled from sleep. Malia growls again, eyes flashing blue. They almost match the colour of the numbers on her alarm clock, flashing 11:23 at her accusingly.

“Malia.” All she gets in a slightly less aggressive growl in response. “Malia! What’s going on?”

“There’s someon- something outside,” Malia grits out and punctuates it with another low growl, just for good measure. This time though, she actually receives one in return. “It’s leaving. We have to follow it, it could lead us to whoever thinks it’s okay to dump dead bodies on people’s doorsteps.” That’s all the warning she gets, before Malia is dragging her out of bed and pulling her along on their second scent trail together. 

-  
It’s painfully silent as they follow the trail. It does eventually lead them somewhere; back to the clearing where they found the body of the first selkie. Malia pauses for a minute, scents the air and then heads for the canopy of green on the other side of the not-pond-not lake.

They walk for a while; just a little further. It leads them to another clearing that Lydia didn't even know was there. There's another body of water, bigger than the last but still not quite a lake, and an abandoned building on the far side. 

Malia points towards the building accusingly. 

"There." Then she's off again, Lydia following behind. 

Upon closer inspection the building seems to be a large abandoned mill, a farm perhaps. It's tall and grey, leans slightly towards the left. 

Malia seems even more tense the closer they get, all hard muscle and unsheathed claws. Her eyes flash blue, her fangs extending when they reach the door. 

"What wrong?" Lydia asks, concerned. 

"Something’s wrong," Malia says, her voice oddly harsh. "There are so many scents, it smells awful."

"Is it more bodies?" Lydia can’t smell anything but dirt and forest. 

"No, not dead. Just bad." 

Lydia calls Allison and Kira then, tells them to bring Deaton. She wonders if he's getting tired of them using him as a supernatural encyclopedia in the absence of Derek. 

\- 

Kira and Allison arrive, armed and dangerous. Deaton trails wearily behind them. 

When they get inside, it's evident that it was used as a remote farmhouse once upon a time. There are four levels, each one empty bar the mattresses on the floor, dirty and dusty. Each of the many bathrooms have a tub full of water, but the house is empty. For now.

They head back outside to investigate the almost-lake. Deaton just stares at it pensively for a few minutes before eventually dropping to his knees and dipping his hand into the water, pressing his wet fingers to his lips.

"Interesting," he remarks. "Time to go." He wanders back to where they must have parked, and they all share a look of confusion before following. Lydia would be tempted to repeat his actions and figure it out for herself if he wasn't in such a rush; he is her ride. 

-

"Plan on sharing what's going on in that brain of yours?" Allison demands more than asks, Lydia figures she's cranky, it's almost one am and Allison doesn't like to function on lack of sleep unless it's finals week. Kira quietly chastises her. 

"Ah, yes. The water in the lake is saltwater." he says as if that explains everything. 

"So...?" Kira now confuse

"So saltwater lakes don't just appear in the middle of forests." He supplies, clearly wanting them to figure out his train of thought. 

"It's man made, then." Lydia states, a man made saltwater lake in the middle of a forest is still a little perplexing to her sleep deprived brain. 

"No, not man." He answers, gesturing for them to keep thinking on it. 

"Selkie made?" Kira guesses, his eyes light up so they figure she's on the right track. 

"This Mac guy is a water deity right? A sea God. What if his minions made it so he could live in there; closer to his objective." Malia muses aloud, just as Lydia has those exact thoughts. 

"Very good, Malia. You're very close." 

"Can you please just tell us, we're tired." Allison sighs.

"It takes a certain amount of strength for a God to materialise in completely physical form. One would need to consume strength from others." he starts 

"Do he enlists these selkies to help him and then kills them so he can draw strength from it so he can materialise physically and get out of his sea pit of doom?" lydia finishes for him, getting more irate as time passes. 

"Precisely." Deaton concurs. 

"All to take over our pack, why would he want that?"

"He wouldn't, someone would have to make a deal to get his help to do that." 

"How long before he can materialise fully?" Allison asks, it would be useful information if it was discernable but Lydia's entirely sure that there's no possible way that Deaton can know tha- 

"Three weeks, maybe a month if luck is in our favour." She'll have to pick his brain about how exactly he figured that out later. 

"How do we kill him?" Malia, ever the one to be prepared. 

"It would perhaps be better to wait until he can appear in fully physical form. Then you must cut off his head and burn the body." He nods, pleased with himself. 

No big ask, then. 

-  
They find a few bodies in the coming days, nowhere as obvious as Lydia's front door, thankfully. There had been one fresh kill, Lydia awoke to the familiar burning on her tongue and down her throat. Her veins had pulsed with every beat of her heart, her lungs grew thick with the swirl of death seeping into her bones. She had tried to push it down, tried to refuse to let anyone die. Had held her breath so long she almost passed out, but just as she was about to lose consciousness, the breath was ripped from her lungs and the scream was out of her mouth before she could stop it. 

They had a sleepover after that, all four of them. It was nice, it dulled the ache of her body. Allison and Kira had arrived together, there was a lot of that as late. Malia had brought her chicken noodle soup to help with her throat. 

Allison and Kira had fallen asleep wrapped in each other during Legally Blonde 2. She and Malia made it on to Clueless, but fell asleep propped against each other twenty minutes in. It was the most rested and calm she'd ever felt after a prediction. 

-

Waking up after that fills her with a tingling warmth. It's totally unexpected, but not unpleasant. When she wakes up, Allison and Kira aren't there, but Malia is still pressed against her. She wants to stop and admire how adorable Malia looks when she sleeps, but she realises that's creepy. She also smells pancakes. 

"Malia, breakfast." She expects Malia to be difficult to wake up, but at the mere mention of food, she's awake and already getting out of bed. 

They get downstairs to find Allison and Kira chatting away happily together, making googly eyes, it's so sweet it actually makes Lydia a little nauseous. They don’t jolt apart when they sense that they have an audience but they do separate rather quickly. 

Malia plops herself down into one of the bar stools on the island unsubtly. “Pancakes?” Kira grins at her and flips four pancakes onto her plate, Malia grumbles in response, all but shovelling food into her mouth.

“Lyds.” Allison grabs her attention as she put a stack of pancakes on Lydia’s on plate. “How are you feeling?”

“Little rough,” it’s true, she does feel a little rough, “Less like burrowing my head in a dark corner until the pain goes away than I usually do..” She smiles at them, lets them know that she really means it. “I need to tell you guys something.” She figures now is as good a time as any; it’s been playing on her mind for a few days now - she just wanted to be sure before mentioning it to the others.

“Are you okay, Lydia?” Kira asks, brows knitting together and face contorting into concern.

“I want you to teach me how to fight.” She says in one long breath, eyes steel and determined.

“Me?” Kira asks, confusing leaking into her voice.

“All of you. I want you to teach me how to fight. I want to be strong.”

“You are strong,” They all say simultaneously, it’s quite impressive.

“I know,” It’s trues, she’s strong and she does know that. She knows that she’s very strong in useful in a lot of areas, but she doesn’t know where to start with this one, she just knows that she want to. “I want to feel like I’m physically useful as well as intellectually. The guys aren’t here, we need to be strong as a cohesive unit if we’re going to take on an actual God. I want to help.”

“Lydia, you don’t need to learn how to fight because of us.” Kira encourages, Lydia appreciates their concern, gets why they’re being cautious. At the end of the day though, this is her choice.

“I’m not doing it because I think you want me to, I’m doing it because I want to.”

They look at each other, having a silent conversation that Lydia wants to be a part of. She wants to tell them that it’s okay - she knows what she’s doing - she always knows.

“Okay,” Allison says after a short while, “We’ll do it.” She says, they all smile at her now. She feels the warmth from earlier begin to course through her body again.

They decide to take a specific area of combat each; Allison on hand-to-hand, Kira on sword work and Malia will be helping her control her powers and use them to her advantage. They’re going to be starting tomorrow, they only have three weeks before and angry God lets out his frustration on their town.

-  
It’s Allison and hand combat first. It felt right to start with Allison. Even if it means being in the Argent’s creepy basement, which could be more accurately described as large weapons locker than a basement.

“Ready?” Allison pulls her into the centre of the room, where she’s put soft-landing mats on the floor. “First lesson: posture…” She starts.

They spend just over two hours like that, Allison demonstrating perfect defensive and offensive posture and Lydia soaking it all in; mimicking her. They go over how to properly throw punches without hurting her wrist and shoulders. She’s lost count of how many punches she’d thrown into thin air by the time Allison.

“Okay, good job Lyds. Remember; when striking with your non-dominant hand, in this case your right hand, you rotate your body with it to avoid injury. Yeah?” She claps Lydia on the back and grins at her, “I’m proud of you.” 

“I’m proud of me, too.”

-

Kira and sword training is next, after a lunch break. The girls didn’t want the training to be intensive to start with, but Lydia insisted on a heavy training routine - they’re on a time limit after all. Plus, she’s always learned best under pressure. 

They’re using the Argent’s basement-slash-armory for all of their training needs, one of the benefits of coming from a family of hunters she guesses. 

Kira comes in brandishing two wooden katana shaped swords, if she remembers rightly from all of her reading, they’re called ‘Bokken’. They’re used for training in place of an actual katana, for safety reasons. 

Kira hands her a bokken, “Okay, I figured we’d start easy since you don’t really have a lot of experience with swords and I don’t want you to get hurt or anything. So we’re gonna start with the basics. Like how to hold the katana.” She steps in front of Lydia and holds her bokken vertically. “So, what you basically want to do is have the grip of it in your palm at a forty-five degree angle.” She demonstrates and motions for lydia to do the same.

It feels weightier in her palms than she expected it to, slightly cold against her skin. “Like this?” 

“Perfect. Next you want to move your left hand to the very top, just below the tsuka which is the hilt.” She demonstrates again. “That’s it, good. You want to grip it tightly with your pinkie and your ring finger.” 

Lydia tries, but the bokken slips through her palm. She huffs. 

“No no, it’s okay don’t worry about it. It happened to me too my first time. Here, let me help.” She ventures behind Kira and Lydia snorts because it reminds her of those cheesy romance movies where the guy teaches the girl how to do something by pressing really close into her back and manipulating her limbs. “Okay so,” they start over again, Kira helping Lydia place the weapon at a forty-five degree angle, “I find it’s easier if you get a firm grip with your pinkie first,” she helps tighten Lydia’s pinkie around the base. “Good, and now your ring finger.” Kira curls her ring finger around the sword and it already feels more secure in her hands. 

“Is this how you taught Allison?” Lydia smirks around the words as they leave her mouth, she can practically feel Kira’s blush.

“Wha-,” Kira’s in front of her now and Lydia can see the blush. “How did you?”

“She’s my best friend, Kira.” Lydia laughs. Not that Allison has explicitly said anything to her, but it’s part of her best friend powers to know without Allison telling her. She’s sure Malia knows, too.

“Yeah, it’s how I taught Ally.” She smiles sheepishly and her blush deeps as she looks at the floor. “Now uh,” She clears her throat, “Repeat the hand position with your other hand, right down here at the bottom.” She points at the lowest spot on her bokken. 

Lydia mimics her hand position perfectly. “Not bad, huh?” She smirks. 

“Not bad at all. Now with every movement you make with the katana, you want to push forward with this hand,” she taps on Lydia’s left hand which is at the top of the weapon, “And pull back with this hand.” She taps Lydia’s right hand at the bottom this time.

“Got it.” 

And she really does, she takes to the katana training much better than expected. 

-

Supernatural power control with Malia is next. If she’s being honest, she’s not entirely sure what to expect. Malia wasn’t exactly under control of her own supernatural powers until recently, whatever training she did with Derek must have worked. 

She definitely wasn’t expecting to walk back into the makeshift training arena and have her senses assaulted by whatever that horrible smell is. 

 

Malia smiles brightly at her as she walks in, clearly proud of herself for whatever is about to happen. It lights a little fire in Lydia’s chest.

“Malia, what is that smell?”

Malia gets even more smug. “That’s for you to figure out.” She motions for Lydia to join her in the middle of the room. 

“Excuse me?” Lydia Martin does not often get confused, but she must admit that she doesn’t see how this is going to help control her supernatural senses.

“Lydia, if you want to be able to to control your banshee senses, then first you have to be able to control your human senses.” Malia is standing behind, Lydia can feel Malia’s eyes staring at the back of her head.

“Did Derek teach you that?” 

Malia crosses the room to stand behind her, puts her hands around Lydia’s biceps and gives a comforting squeeze. “Trust me, Lydia.”

“Okay.” 

“Good. Take a deep breath. Count backwards from ten.” Lydia does, feels her limbs start to settle. “Now don’t hate me.”

“That depends on what you’re about to do.” 

She doesn’t take long to get her answer. Loud screamo music starts to fill her ears, Malia resumes her position behind her and begins to rub her hands up and down Lydia’s arms. “Tell me what the smells are.” She instructs, barely audible over the loud music. 

“Malia I swear-” 

“Take deep breaths, count backwards from ten. Go slowly. Try and separate your senses with every exhale. Then eventually, you’ll only be able to focus on one.”

She said she would trust Malia, and she does. So she does as instructed. Takes deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth, tries to separate her senses from each other with every breath. She doesn’t know how long she stands there, but eventually the smells start to get more and more intense, drowning out the other senses. “Tuna.” She’s briefly startled by the sound of her own voice but she pulls it back together.

“Good. There are seven other scents, find them.” Malia seems pleased and it encourages her to keep going. 

She concentrates harder and she can feel her brows furrow. She tries to pick out a few of the harder scents first; save the hardest ‘til last. She’s always liked a challenge. “Burned garlic; bad eggs, cheese, onion...”

“Three more,” Malia leans forward in her space, she can feel the ghost of Malia’s breath against the shell of her ear. The pressure on her arms gets harder, it would be hot if she wasn’t in the Argent’s dark basement trying to pick out scents. All she can smell is Malia’s shampoo, strawberry and kiwi. She swears she can even taste it a little. “Keep going.”

“Basil and dirt.” 

“Anything else?” Malia tightens her grip on Lydia’s arms more. 

“Yes.”

“Well?” Malia’s grip keeps tightening, it’s not painful and it actually feels good.

“I want to kiss you.” It’s out of her mouth before she can stop it. Malia takes in a sharp breath of air behind her. 

“Okay.” She feels more than sees Malia nodding.

It’s not how she imagined this moment in her head. She didn’t imagine having to turn around from her awkwards position and she definitely hadn’t imagined the Argent’s creepy basement. But it’s what she has, and she’s going to work with it. 

They’re facing each other, Lydia leans in slowly. She wants to savour it, ghosts her lips over Malia’s before pulling away, making the other girl chase the kiss. Then she does it - presses her lips against Malia’s. It’s firm, but not aggressive. Malia kisses back immediately, it shocks her a bit. It doesn’t take long before they’re both leaning closer and pressing harder. 

“Lavender” She states when they break for air. 

Malia gives her a cheshire cat smile.

-

The next three weeks are a blur of training with Allison, Kira and Malia. She learns how to use an opponent’s body weight against them, how to make her katana attacks shorter and swifter, how to let her emotions bubble under the surface just enough to use them but not let them consume her.

The atmosphere grows gradually more tense as time goes on, waiting for the God to rise. Wondering how they’ll even know that he’s manifested - they haven’t found anymore bodies.

-

It turns out that it would be quite obvious when it’s happening. 

Malia, Kira and Allison have been staying over the past few nights - just in case. They’re all asleep in Lydia’s room; Allison and Kira sharing the futon and Malia and Lydia sharing her bed - it’s become sort of commonplace for them to fall asleep next to each other lately. 

They’re all awoken by a high-pitched screech during the night. All it takes is one look out of Lydia’s bedroom window to confirm what it was - there’s a midnight blue glow coming from where the area that houses the almost-lake and the abandoned farmhouse. 

Lydia feels nervousness coil in her stomach, one look at the other’s and she knows that they can feel it too.  
“We can do this.” Malia reassures her, squeezing her hand before they all head to Allison’s car that’s been parked in the Martin driveway these past few days. They loaded it up with weapons spiked with wolfsbane at the three week mark as a precaution. 

-

There’s an air of nervous silence during the relatively short drive to the reserve. They park a short walk away from the farmhouse. 

“Lydia?” Malia turns to her after Allison and Kira get out. Lydia looks back, giving Malia her full attention. “I was thinking that maybe we should go on a date after all of this is over?” 

Lydia turns her lips up into a smirk, “Yeah, maybe we should.” Then she gets out to join Allison and Kira at the trunk - pointedly ignoring the bemusement on their faces.

Kira hands her a katana. “Remember, always draw with your left hand.” Is the final piece of sword-wielding advice she gives before they set off.

As the get nearer to the farmhouse, the scent of death gets stronger and clings to the tissue of Lydia’s lungs. “He’s had to kill a lot of selkies.”

They follow the smell of the ocean and get to where the almost-lake used to be. It’s gone now. Something to do with the manifestation into physical form, Lydia supposes. 

They muscle on. At the perimeter of the farmhouse, it’s clear they aren’t going to get to him easily. The place is swarming with selkies of all shapes and sizes - big, small, muscular, lanky - they’ve got it all covered. She sends small thanks to the Gods that she managed to convince the others to train her. 

-

They have to fight their way through waves and waves of selkies, so many Lydia can’t even keep count. Allison shoots them down from a distance; Kira and Lydia gracefully slice their way through them with their swords and Malia goes for good old fashioned fighting. One of them manages to get his claws into Lydia’s thigh, they’re deceptively sharp for creatures with webbed hands. 

The fight their way up the levels to the top, fourth floor - into one of the bedrooms at the back. Manannán mac Lir is just sitting there on a chair, in the middle of the room waiting for them. He’s smaller than she expected, he’s no taller than Allison. More lanky too, she was under the impression he was going to look like Thor. Instead, he looks like pre-serum Steve Rogers.

Allison doesn’t waste any time getting started, she lets an arrow loose almost as soon as they enter the room. It pierces his shoulder and clear coloured liquid pours from the wound. Manannán just pulls it from his shoulder and tosses it aside. “Wolfsbane has no effect on me, child. I am no wolf.”

He stands from the chair, drawing his sword. Lydia can feel the heat from the flames, even from halfway across the room. He walks towards them, smirking the whole time.

Malia and Kira look at each other before charging him, trying to bombard him with attacks. Allison starts firing arrows too. Soon she starts doubling up, firing three arrows per shot. Lydia wouldn’t say it’s having no effect on him, he is slowing down somewhat. He still deflects them easily. 

One of the blows connects with Malia’s side, causing her to gasp out in pain. The smell of singed flesh fills the room before Malia starts to heal. 

Lydia is tiring of it really quickly. She just wants to go home and sleep for a week, to have her date with Malia. It sparks an idea within her.

She rushes him once more, ducking the swing of his sword when he tries to deflect her. She drops to her knees, sliding along the wooden floor through his legs to the other side. She uses the short and swift strokes of the katana that Kira taught her to slice the back of both of his knees.

He stops moving for a second. Then he starts to collapse towards the ground, shins hitting the floor and body remaining upright. This her chance, Lydia knows it. She draws back the katana and pushes forward with all the physical strength she can muster, striking him in the back of the neck. 

“Lydia!” Allison yells, Lydia turns towards her in time to see the small vat of fuel and matches they’d brought to burn the body with hurtling through the air towards her. She tries not to look at the body beneath her as she douses it in fuel, ignoring the smell of stale ocean attempting to flood her nostrils. She closes her eyes and drops the lit match from her hand.

-

“So, about that date…” Malia says as they flee the burning building, trying to reach the safety of Allison’s car.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [ tumblr](agentdamnnvers.tumblr.com)


End file.
